1. instead of seeing the 7 sub folders in the external drive, all the images are out of order, entirely scrambled. when I open LR3 however, the contents of these folders are greyed out and show 0 images. I can see the question mark next to the image saying it is located elsewhere (i.e. on the external hd)If I plug in the external hd I can open the images and edit in CS5, but as I said it 's like finding a needle in the haystack.

2. no new space shows up on my mac hd even though that was the reason I made the export.

is there a way to fix this? I have a different external hd that backs up LR. Currently it is not plugged in. I am afraid to plug it in because it will take the new LR configuration and I'd lose any option to correct the problem. I also , on the same (different) hd I have Time Machine backup. would that help to fix the problem and bring back the organization I previously had with the 7 subfolders. All that organization is currently lost,i.e. show as greyed out 0 content in LR on my mac hd and shows as scrambled on the external hd.

Export will not free up space. So export is not the way to solve this problem.

The proper way to free up space is to move the photos elsewhere, but first you have to fix these issues:

1. instead of seeing the 7 sub folders in the external drive, all the images are out of order, entirely scrambled. when I open LR3 however, the contents of these folders are greyed out and show 0 images. I can see the question mark next to the image saying it is located elsewhere (i.e. on the external hd)If I plug in the external hd I can open the images and edit in CS5, but as I said it 's like finding a needle in the haystack.

I'm not sure what order you are seeing, but if you are looking in your operating system, you can change the sort order in your operating system.

If you are seeing greyed out photos, please clarify ... is this in the Import dialog box or in the Library Module grid.

the images in lr hd show full color and writing says image (#) is offline or missing.n No greyed out there. On the left side, under pictures, folders and subfolders, that is where the sub folder titles are greyed out I realize now that they are greyed out because there is 0 content to the folders.

The remaining problem then is the scrambled order in which the images show up on the external drive. If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that the original organization that I had in lr on my mac hd (I had a folder for the year that showed 0 bytes, and 12 subfolders for the months, some of which were empty but 7 had content) t hat organization can be retrieved using the external hd to retrieve it?? how to do this??

also, If I can’t open up more hd space on my mac by moving lr files to an external drive, then how best to create more space other than to actually delete some of the images??

By the way , thank y iu so much for responding, especially since it’s a holiday today!! EZ

the images in lr hd show full color and writing says image (#) is offline or missing

So I gave a link that should solve this problem

The remaining problem then is the scrambled order in which the images show up on the external drive. If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that the original organization that I had in lr on my mac hd (I had a folder for the year that showed 0 bytes, and 12 subfolders for the months, some of which were empty but 7 had content) t hat organization can be retrieved using the external hd to retrieve it?? how to do this??

I don't think I said this. Without seeing the actual scrambled order and without knowing the order you want, the only thing I can suggest is you use your operating system to change the order to sort by filename, or sort by capture date, or whatever order you'd like. If you can show us a screen capture of the present scrambled order and describe what you want to see, we might be able to help more.

also, If I can’t open up more hd space on my mac by moving lr files to an external drive, then how best to create more space other than to actually delete some of the images??

Again, that's now what I said. You spoke of exporting (not moving) in your first post, and I said exporting is not the way to solve this problem where you need to free up more space.

I spoke of moving photos, not exporting, and that moving the photos is the way to solve the problem where you need more space. You can move the photos anywhere you want, using your operating system (which will free up space if you move them to a new drive); and then you would reconnect the photos inside of Lightroom using the link I gave.

thanks for that info. Am I reading you right that exporting the images from lr on my hd to an external hd does not free up space on my internal hd…then the only benefit of such an export is as a form of backup in case my internal hd fails???

I don’t know how to take a screen capture of my external hd (or my internal hd, for that matter)..how to do it?

Exporting does not free up space on whatever disk your photos are on. Exporting is not a "backup" in any sense that I know of, since a backup must be an exact duplicate of your original file. Backups must be made either using your operating system or via third-party software ... and you need to make regular and automated backups of your original photos and your catalog file. Exporting is used to provide a copy of your photo with edits applied, for non-Lightroom use such as e-mail, web, print, etc.

I do not know how to make a screen capture on a Mac, but I think your favorite search engine can find the instructions.

I do have a separate external hd that I usually keep plugged into my mac for the purpose of backing up my computer to the time machine. Included in that external hd is a partition (I’m pretty sure} dedicated to LR backups. Periodically I get a prompt in lr asking if I want to back up lr and I have been consistent about doing so. At this point however, since those out of order images have be “exported” (am I using the right word??) to the second external hd, into a folder without subfolders, (hence the scrambling effect), if I were to plug in the external hd that is my backup drive (for time machine as well as for lr), won’t it be backing up the mistake I made by not using subfolders ongto the other external drive, thereby compounding the problem? The way it is now, I could access, as in time machine, whatever organization I had before??? not sure abut this. Real question is what to do at this point to properly organize the image data that was “exported” to the external hd that we have been talking about.

I don't really have the ability to answer detailed questions about Time Machine, as I don't use it. However, Time Machine needs to be set to make backups of your Lightroom catalog file, and all original photos. You wouldn't normally make backups of your exports.

At this point however, since those out of order images have be “exported” (am I using the right word??) to the second external hd, into a folder without subfolders, (hence the scrambling effect),

This is the first time in this thread that you have provided this information, that subfolders are not present in the group of exported photos, and that is the exact "scrambling" you are seeing.

If you want subfolders to be present when you export, then in Lightroom, you export one original folder at a time, to a location with the proper folder/subfolder names. (Or alternatively you can use a plug-in to put exports into sub-folders).

But since we have discussed the reasons you are making the exports, and it seems like the reasons don't apply (they do not free up space), I guess I don't see a reason for you to make these exports at this time, nor do I see a need for you to put these exports into proper subfolders (unless you have other plans for the exports that I haven't understood). So after all of this, it seems to me like your problem is really how to free up space, and not what to do about the exports. Is that correct, or am I missing something?

zarowin, you want to move the files. Not export them! See here: Move folders around in Lightroom | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom tutorials. There are two ways to do that. One is to move the folders inside Lightroom to your external HD, the other is to move them in the finder and reconnect the folders afterwards using the tips in the link dj linked to above. Also, you really should upgrade your Lightroom. LR 3 is not fully Yosemite compatible. I think the problems are mostly cosmetic though.

Periodically I get a prompt in lr asking if I want to back up lr and I have been consistent about doing so. At this point however, since those out of order images have be “exported” (am I using the right word??) to the second external hd, into a folder without subfolders, (hence the scrambling effect), if I were to plug in the external hd that is my backup drive (for time machine as well as for lr), won’t it be backing up the mistake I made by not using subfolders ongto the other external drive, thereby compounding the problem?

This warning has nothing to do with Time Machine. It is Lightroom's own backup. Every week or so, it will generate a backup Library that you can revert to in the case of trouble. In fact, you can usually safely delete the very old ones but keep them from the last month or so. Look for them in a folder called "Backups" right next to your main catalog file (probably in your Pictures folder). Be sure to only throw away the oldest backups. If you have never done this and have a large catalog with 10's of thousands of images you probably have easily 100 GB of these backups. Just calculate how much space you are wasting if you started doing this around LR 3, several years of backup catalogs at a frequency of once a week, and a typical catalog size of 1.5 GB (my main catalog is over 2GB).

Lastly, Time Machine backup doesn't overwrite older versions. It keeps versions around of all your catalog files (including the backups!).

thanks so much for staying the course with me. I’ll look into the link.

However, something drastic has happened in the meantime. I opened up the external drive (into which I exported the years worth of images. I went into my photographs folder from that external drive and clicked to sort by date. I edited a couple of images , editing through lr to cs5 to see if it worked. All seemed fine. I closed the external drive (correctly) and went back into lr on my internal drive and noticed that only 350 images were listed in lr under all photos. Previously I had over 25,000!! I can see these images by going back to the external drive, but I don’t understand what happen. Essentially I seem to have lost all but a few hundred images from my lr catalog. OUCH!! what happened and can fix it? I still have a second external backup drive and my time machine to fall back on (I hope) since I have not opened that backup drive since these spsroblems began.

You’re spot on!! The was my first time locating the LR folder in Pictures (through Finder)..I must have clicked on the wrong catalog. Once I realized that , I found all 25,000+ images. So thanks!

A different, but related problem however is that when I moved the folder from LR containing the 12 subfolders (year 2012 and 12 monthly folders) from my mac hd to the external hd, somehow it was done in a way that lr can no longer recognize the original order. Could that be fixed? e.g. if I used time machine to restore Pictures (also LR?) to the day before I moved those folders to the external drive? The other option would be to assign key words to all those images that would segregate the different images when I needed to pull them up. Any thoughts? I also just purchased LR 5, but before I install it I think it would be best to clean up the existing filing so that I don’t bring all the old problems into the new LR. Do you agree?

A different, but related problem however is that when I moved the folder from LR containing the 12 subfolders (year 2012 and 12 monthly folders) from my mac hd to the external hd, somehow it was done in a way that lr can no longer recognize the original order.

Once again, we need the details.

EXACTLY how did you do this move? Please give us the step by step method you used, using the proper Lightroom or operating system command names.

What exactly do you see on your screen that implies that "lr can no longer recognize the original order"?

At any time, have you followed the instructions in the two links earlier in this thread? If so, you shouldn't be having this problem.